Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, is among three high-ranking officials facing an uncommon criminal complaint lodged with Paris prosecutors on Thursday.
The commander-in-chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, is one of three senior officials targeted in a rare criminal complaint filed with Paris prosecutors Thursday.
Along with Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and Al-Quds force chief Esmail Qaani, Salami is accused of “death threats and justifying terrorism,” a lawyer for the six Iranian and Franco-Iranian plaintiffs said.
Their case refers to public threats issued by the three men between December 2022 and January 2023 against people backing the nationwide protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested for violating Iran’s female dress code.
Khatib said on December 13 last year that “anyone playing a role in the riots will be punished, wherever they are in the world”.
The declaration was spread widely in the press and on social media, according to the text of the criminal complaint seen by AFP.
Meanwhile, Salami himself said on January 10 that “the French people and the managers of (satirical anti-clerical magazine) Charlie Hebdo” should not “concern themselves with the fate of Salman Rushdie”.
The British author has long been subject to a fatwa calling for his killing issued by Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and was gravely wounded in an August 2022 knife attack. Charlie Hebdo staff were massacred by jihadist gunmen in 2015 after publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Their largely symbolic complaint marks the first anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022 – which triggered the “Woman. Life. Freedom” movement across Iran.
The France-based Iran Justice Collective has been documenting abuses and repression against demonstrators over the past year, which the group says have resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests.
Maria Chami with AFP
